


Running Stitch

by rixsig-writes (rixsig)



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Fantasy AU, M/M, aka kaoru and shu plot revolution the fic, crown prince kaoru and royal tailor shu, shu is magic btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22555120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rixsig/pseuds/rixsig-writes
Summary: Kaoru Hakaze has no intention of taking the throne, but it isn't so easy as simply walking away.
Relationships: Hakaze Kaoru/Itsuki Shuu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Running Stitch

**Author's Note:**

> for shi, who requested a prince/tailor fantasy au <3

The Royal Tailor’s quarters sit atop the eastern spire, facing the mountains and tucked away from the bustle and noise of the rest of the castle. The kingdom might be lucky to have had the Itsuki line under its service for all these hundreds of years—their unique ability to sew protection and weave spells into the cloth is coveted the world over—but in the castle proper Shu is famous more for his… difficult nature than anything else. Withdrawn, hermitish, and prone to wild displays, Shu has become more of an urban legend than a man. Even Kaoru, the crown prince, has only seen him on a scant handful of occasions and never up close. 

Until now.

“So…” Kaoru draws out, trying to ignore the unblinking stare of Shu’s apprentice. How awkward. He cranes his neck to find Shu in the room adjacent, readying a piece of cloth in an embroidery hoop. “Do I just stand here? I need to get measured or something first, right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who do you think made the clothes on your back? I know your measurements perfectly well by now.”

“Oh.” Kaoru looks down at his own coat sleeve with more appreciation than usual. Kagehira, the apprentice, has always been the one to measure him so Kaoru assumed Shu had nothing to do with Kaoru’s everyday wear. “I thought you just did my fancier outfits.You know, for balls and court attire and all that. This kind of thing really doesn’t seem like your style?”

As Shu walks back in his eyes make a stern sweep from the top of Kaoru’s head down to the tips of his toes, a twinge of dissatisfaction twisting at the corner of his mouth. “There’s little point in making a wardrobe you won’t appreciate.” 

“Hey!” Shu ignores his protest and waves a hand toward a chair instead, beckoning Kaoru to sit as he takes his own seat in the chair set up to face it. Kaoru pouts but does as he’s told, not sparing much of a thought for the ornate upholstery and dark wood frame other than to think that it’s a shame that even up here everything has to look all stuffy. “Look, ruffles and horseback riding just don’t go together very well, okay?” 

“Yes, yes, I’m extremely aware of your so-called ‘free spirited’ nature.” Shu says, distracted. His attention is all on the golden thread he picks from the spool. It glints in the light like something ethereal, like Shu plucked it straight out of the heart of the sun. He makes quick work of threading it through a needle which looks disappointingly ordinary in comparison. “I can’t escape a single conversation without being forced to hear of your exploits.”

“Every time you have a conversation, huh? So, what. That’s once a year then?” 

Shu clicks his tongue but doesn’t take offense, much to Kaoru’s surprise. Although maybe he shouldn’t be shocked that Shu knows what people say about him, just like Kaoru is aware of his own infamous reputation. Shirking his duties, disappearing on frequent trips to the seaside, keeping the company of women ‘below his station’... Kaoru’s the very picture of an irresponsible prince. He has enough charm to get away with it, but his father is constantly displeased with him these days. Good. Maybe if Kaoru fails this ceremony hard enough he can finally forsake the crown altogether. 

After all, without the Tailor’s Mark you can never be king. 

“Alright,” Kaoru says with a long sigh, doing his best to make himself comfortable in the stiff seat even though he’s more than ready for this whole thing to be over already, “How’s this work? Do you need my blood or something?”

Shu grimaces in disgust. “Good lord, no. What are you mistaking me for? A dark mage? Accusing  _ me _ of blood magic! Absolutely disgusting.” He knots the end of the thread and draws the needle through the fabric in the hoop. “We speak. I embroider.”

“That’s it?” Kaoru says at first. And then, with incredulity, “Speak? About what?”

Now prepared to make the very first stitch, the needle hovers in Shu’s hand, waiting. “About you, of course.” Shu’s eyes are piercing, and Kaoru’s heart clenches with a sudden stab of fear. “And from the moment we begin until the moment we end, you  _ will not lie _ .”

Kaoru’s hands twitch on the armrests. “Ahaha… You’re making it sound like I’m on trial or something.” Hey why didn’t his father mention any of this before he came up here? Kaoru’s eyes cast around the room like he’s looking for a lifeboat, but no one else is there with them, even Shu’s scruffy apprentice having vanished into thin air.

“Hmph! Of course you’re on trial.” 

Then giving Kaoru no more time to prepare, no more time to entertain an escape plan, Shu begins to recite. He projects his voice like a showman on stage, broad, dramatic, inviting. “To the spirits of earth, bone, and blood. To the spirits of water and salt, life and death. To the fire and the bitter frost. To the air and the spheres above, spinning in their eternal cycles. To our country and all other countries beyond.”

Kaoru’s witnessed magic plenty of times before but never like this. Even though it’s spoken plainly—not in that strange language mages love so much—he can feel the spell tighten its noose around him, everything in the room trapped in a thick hush.

“Today we spill the thoughts of this man before you,” Shu continues, “so that you might judge him worthy. Today I reveal the sigil of his heart so that you might know him and lend him your strength in his times of need. Crown Prince Kaoru Hakaze. Are you ready?”

_ No!  _ Kaoru thinks frantically. God, he’s not ready at all. And he should  _ want  _ to fail, that’s what he came here for, but even though there’s only the two of them in this room it suddenly feels like Kaoru’s under the scrutiny of a thousand scalding eyes. Kaoru swallows. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he says with a weak grin.

Shu clicks his tongue in disapproval at the casual phrasing, but the spirits have no qualms. Kaoru can’t see any visible change, but all of a sudden no matter how Kaoru tries he can’t budge an inch from where he sits. Iron chains wouldn’t have been more effective than this. Kaoru has agreed to the terms. And now he’s stuck here until the ceremony is over.

“Prince Hakaze.” Shu intones, making the first stitch. Kaoru watches him reach under the hoop and pull the needle through. “Speak of the citizens of this land.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your would-be future subjects. Tell me your thoughts on them.”

“Like… any of them?”

Shu gestures impatiently.

Kaoru knows, objectively, that Shu wants him to talk about more practical things like public policy and Kaoru’s plans for the populus at large. The problem is Kaoru disagrees with his father’s policies in every single conceivable way, and his father’s policies are the only things the tutor’s been allowed to teach him. Kaoru’s long since mastered the art of cramming and then instantly forgetting information for this very reason. 

Which is why he ends up talking about the girls he’s met instead.

After fifteen straight minutes of this Shu finally interjects, looking like he’d rather jam his needle into both of his own eardrums than endure a second longer. “Do you not have a single thing to say about the people that live in your own kingdom other than pointless anecdotes about the ‘dates’ you’ve had with the commonfolk? Surely since you leave the castle so often you have at least a handful of regular encounters to speak of!”

“Regular?” Kaoru blinks. “Well, I helped an old lady take her groceries home from the market once or twice. Oh! And every month these three adorable little girls have a tea party so I always sneak them pastries from the kitch—I did  _ not _ mean to say any of that. Oh god please don’t tell the cooks, the head chef is so scary?!”

“Did I not warn you that you wouldn’t be able to lie?”

“I thought that was a threat, not part of the spell!”

“Tsk. Threats are boorish and vulgar.” Shu quickly wrests the conversation back to the previous topic. “I can’t help but notice even with these ‘regular’ additions all of these people are women.”

“I usually avoid guys?” Kaoru feels compelled to say. The spell must have recognized it as a question even if Shu didn’t actually voice one. So it’s not just lying, it also forces you to answer? Maybe that’s counted under lying by omission. Yikes.

“Hm.” Shu says in response, frowning. For a moment Kaoru’s afraid he’ll pry further but instead he pursues a completely different line of questioning, and Kaoru starts the process of spilling his guts a second time with a weird sense of relief, watching as Shu places stitches seemingly at random. It doesn’t look like much of a sigil, more like a mess of golden marks ruining a perfectly good piece of cloth. So… that’s what failing the test looks like, huh. 

They fall into a rhythm, Kaoru answering question after question and following the motion of Shu’s hand as he works. He notes the furrow in Shu’s brow as he completes each stitch with complete concentration. It’s weird that he’s taking this so seriously. He didn’t seem impressed with Kaoru in the first place, so why bother with all of this? Because his father commanded it? All of the royal commands in the world couldn’t make Kaoru the kind of king his father wants. 

“Hey,” Kaoru says, breaking a moment of rare silence, “what do  _ you _ think of this country?”

“Be quiet while I concentrate,” Shu snaps absently.

“Why? Me asking one question isn’t going to ruin the ceremony is it?’

“No, but I’d rather not prolong it any further.”

Thankfully the spell lets Kaoru move his arms at least. He sets his elbow on the armrest and props his chin on his hand. “Ouch. Want away from me that badly? Come on, if you answer I promise I’ll be good~”

“Fine,” Shu huffs, pausing his work. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He snaps it back shut, alarmed, and Kaoru watches as his throat bobs like he’s trying to swallow something that’s gotten stuck in there. Shu broods in bitter silence for a while, and then finally tries again, voice wavering with contained passion. “Do you honestly think I’d be content with the country that cut the importance of my station at the knee and shut me away to this loathsome tower?”

You could hear a pin drop.

Kaoru starts. “You… You’re not?” Wait, wait, wait. One, Shu had clearly tried to say something different the first time around. So does that mean that Shu’s bound to the same truthfulness that Kaoru is? And two, shut away? “Don’t you hate people or something? Everyone says you chose to set up shop here.”

Shu huffs. “That was the King’s choice, not mine. Although I suppose my jailer could have picked a much worse location for me.” 

“Wh…”

“Surely you’ve noticed in the few times I’ve appeared outside I’ve always had some brute of a guard hovering at my shoulder. Let me assure you, that was not for my protection.” Before Kaoru can begin processing that Shu is already dismissing the topic, readying his needle. “But enough of this. Prince Hakaze, what do you intend to do once you have the crown?”

Kaoru glares at the floor.

“Prince Hakaze.”

“Nothing.”

“ _ Pardon _ ?” Shu’s head snaps to him.

“I said nothing,” Kaoru repeats, helpless anger clogging his throat. Putting someone like the Royal Tailor under house arrest… unbelievable. and now that Kaoru knows about it he can guess why. Shu is too valuable to exile or execute. But what reason could there be to punish this man in the first place? What would his father even say if Kaoru tried to confront him? “I don’t want it. Hey, can we just skip to the end? I already know I’m not suited for this whole ‘long may he reign in honor and glory’ thing.”

Shu sputters, gobsmacked. “You—! What?!”

“You don’t think so either, right?” Kaoru shrugs. “So what do you say we just call it a day? Fail me out of the crown. I’m sure my sister will marry a better king than I could ever be.”

“That. That is  _ not _ how this works,” Shu hisses. He lunges out of his chair, furious. “I already know that I’ve been tossed aside and put on a shelf to gather dust like some unwanted antique, some...some outdated product of a bygone era! But I refuse to do a single thing by halves. I will die before I do something sloppily! Even if I know this ceremony is meaningless posturing I will carry it through to the end, with perfect artistry—!”

“Wait wait, hold on. Back up. Meaningless?” Maybe Kaoru should feel unsettled that Shu can move around while he’s still stuck to this great immoveable chair, but he’s too shocked at the notion of anyone calling the Tailor’s Mark  _ meaningless _ . He leans forward in his chair as far as the spell will allow him. “What do you mean? Since when?”

“Ask the King, long may he bring prosperity to us all,” Shu spits venomously, throwing himself back on his own seat in a fit of pique. “Tossing aside the craft as if it means nothing!”

Tossing aside the craft, locking up the Royal Tailor to use only on his own terms… 

“He’s... not actually going to care what my results are, is he...?”

Shu motions for him to continue, a gesture of barely contained fury.

“But if he doesn’t care, then—” The conclusion Kaoru draws is unthinkable. “ _ He _ doesn’t have a Tailor’s Mark?!”

“Just so.” Shu plops the embroidery hoop on his lap with a great sigh, abruptly sounding weary. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he hid that fact even from you all these years.”

“But how… there’s no way! You can’t just  _ not _ get one. People would talk! You have to display it at the coronation! In front of hundreds of people! How could he have—” 

“He failed the ceremony, you see. An utter travesty. Abysmal. When I refused to forge him a fake Mark and couldn’t be bribed, he took my freedom and then commissioned some flashy, utterly hollow piece of embroidery from someone else to serve as a substitute. I was painted as a lunatic, and he had enough allies in court that no one questioned it. Or if they had they were all eventually silenced, in one way or another.”

Kaoru flops back against the chair with a ‘wumph,’ shellshocked. “His coronation was a lie. This whole time. He was rejected. He’s a fake king.”

And yet even though his father ignored the Tailor’s Mark he still sent his son to go get it. Why? What’s the point? Why risk putting anyone in talking distance of someone like Shu Itsuki, who has enough of the truth to be dangerous? (Kaoru knows why: His father thought Kaoru wasn’t interested or sharp enough to follow through on it.) 

Well. His father must still see value in the Tailor’s Mark even though he himself failed the test. “He still wants me to pass,” Kaoru murmurs. “Once the Mark is passed on no one would be able to prove his was a fake.” 

Shu nods stiffly. “And under the cover of your legitimate reign he would be able to keep pulling the strings.”

Kaoru bolts back upright. “Okay cool. Fail me. Fail me right now.”

“Excuse you? I will  _ not _ .”

“Why?! You literally just said he was going to use me!”

“He’ll use anything at his disposal to stay in power, with or without you.” 

Shu raises the hoop in his hands and readies himself to continue once again. Kaoru laughs in disbelief. “So you’re just going to play his game? Are you serious?” 

“Ridiculous. I never play rigged games. I create art in an artless world.”

“It doesn’t matter how you feel like phrasing it, dude, you’re still playing right into his hands.”

“And what would you have me do?” Shu flings a hand outwards. “Give up? Die?” 

“What, no!” 

“Good, because I have already tried and it’s horribly ineffective.”

“Uh…” Kaoru’s really hoping Shu only tried the first one. 

“Now answer me another question,” Shu says, efficiently cutting Kaoru’s thought short. “If your answer is unsatisfactory then I’ll let you be on your way and you can wash your hands of this whole wretched business, just as you desire. I’ll expose the fact that your ceremony was a failure before your father can begin to cover it up.” 

But then, what would his father do to Shu…?

Kaoru swallows. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you stay.”

Kaoru breathes in. Breathes out, heart pounding. Sits up in his chair. “Alright. Hit me.”

“ _ Why _ do you not wish to be king, Prince Hakaze?”

Kaoru blinks, caught off guard. Does that even matter? Well, whatever. “I keep telling you, I’m not cut out for it, okay?” But before he can relax more words are squirming out of his throat. “I don’t want to be a part of this. This kingdom deserves better.” Fuck, fuck, fuck, he’d forgotten the spirits weren’t satisfied with half-truths. He presses his lips together but can’t maintain it for long. The last bit pushes its way out, inevitable. “I don’t want to be like my father.”

Kaoru keeps his eyes trained anywhere but on Shu’s face, wishing he could disappear, but the spell holds fast. God, why isn’t the ceremony over already?

“You would be a very different king than your father,” Shu says after a while, with uncharacteristic softness. When Kaoru finally brings himself to look at him, his eyes are as sharp and as bright as the needle he holds, like he’s just found the most precious of gems. “Any old fool can destroy something. It takes belief, passion, and skill to forge something valuable.”

“Hah. That doesn’t sound anything like me.”

“It will.”

Kaoru’s heart jumps in shock at the conviction in Shu’s voice. “How do you know?” he demands. He stares at Shu’s hands as they start working with more purpose, stitch after stitch appearing twice as fast in the deep blue cloth. 

Shu continues without acknowledging Kaoru’s question, “... did you know I take after my grandfather? I idolized him as a child and inherited the trade from him. He’s the only one of my family that ever truly understood me. He frustrated me at times, but I admired him greatly.”

“O...kay…?” 

“Is there anyone you wanted to imitate when you were young?”

It’s like Shu plunged his fist right into Kaoru’s chest, ripping the breath right out of him. “My… my mother.”

“Ah.” Shu’s hands pause. At that time the Hakazes had only been one of many noble families, just a drop in the pool of applicants for the crown, but the whole kingdom had heard so Shu must have as well, how close Kaoru had been with his mother, how distraught he’d been when she’d died all those years ago. “Of course.”

Kaoru pulls against the force holding him to the chair, and blinks stubbornly against the tears welling in his eyes. “Why are you asking me this? Isn’t this enough yet?”

“Almost,” Shu says, a finger tracing curves in the embroidery. It doesn’t look like a mess of marks anymore. It almost looks like— “We’re almost finished.” 

Kaoru hangs his head. “What else is  _ left _ ?”

“Prince Hakaze, you have more choice than you know. You can forsake what he’s done without forsaking the crown. You’re not fated to rule like your father.” Kaoru doesn’t notice Shu leaving his seat, but he feels the fingers gently tipping his chin back up. “Rule as your mother would have done.”

“How?” Kaoru chokes out. He’d already given up on flights of fancy like this ages ago. “He’s got a chokehold on everybody. He’ll turn the council and the court against me. He’s—”

“Who do you think that I am?” Shu’s eyes glint with pride. “Do you think I’ve been idle all these years? He’ll find the court less docile than he remembers. And the Tailor’s Mark is more powerful than this generation can conceive of. The cloth I fashion for the soldiers might as well be a cheap parlor trick in comparison. This I promise: no one will touch you as long as I live.” 

The spark of hope that flares to life is almost painful. Kaoru grips Shu’s wrist like a lifeline. He opens his mouth to speak but can’t find the words to say.

“I’d begun to think this day would never come,” Shu admits. “I refused to give into despair, but I had little faith that I could find someone like you.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.” Shu insists. “You’ve shown me that you still are. Under oath and before the most sacred of witnesses.” Shu carefully extracts his wrist from Kaoru’s grip and readies the embroidery hoop. “So now there is one last question I must ask of you.” 

The room falls into a hush, like thousands of ears are craning in to listen. When Kaoru manages a nod, Shu continues. “Prince Hakaze. No... Kaoru. Do you accept the weight of the crown?”

His worst fear. But somehow the fierce hope in the tailor’s eyes is more real to him right now than all the nightmare scenarios Kaoru has ever tortured himself with. It should probably be harder, Kaoru thinks, to trust someone than this, but if anyone ever asks he can claim it was the spell’s fault. 

Definitely, definitely the spell’s fault. 

“I do.”

And months later, after the court has fractured and regrown, after the wrongful king is ousted, Kaoru is crowned. And as it’s placed on Kaoru’s head he wears his sigil proudly over his heart, a feather over the waves, Shu standing at his side. 


End file.
